Plenty of punters looking at Myer

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Coles Myer has received indications of interest from 13 parties
thinking of acquiring the retailer's struggling Myer department
stores, says the chief executive, John Fletcher.

The Myer stores had a poor annual result for 2004-05, making
$38.6 million for the year but losing $15 million in the second
half.

Coles Myer, Australia's biggest retailer, is calling for
interested parties to make bids in the next few weeks as it
considers selling, spinning off or retaining the 61 Myer
stores.

"There's been reports [of] about 13 [potential buyers] - they
are largely accurate and this is without [Coles Myer] even asking,"
Mr Fletcher told the Nine Network's Business Sunday
program.

"I mean, we just announced we were doing a review and 13 people
called up and said 'we'd like to be in it'."

Mr Fletcher said that if the Myer stores were sold, they would
be offered as one lot.

"I just can't imagine how I could get an expression of interest
that would demonstrate to us that we would get more by breaking
[the Myer chain] up."

He said selling Myer was not a certainty and the stores could be
retained. "We might [keep them] - that's the point of this, we
might.

"We understand what we think we can do with it. What we need to
understand is: does someone else think it's worth more than
that?"

Asked if the head of the Myer chain, Dawn Robertson, had been in
the US looking at job opportunities and was off-contract, Mr
Fletcher said she was on a rolling contract and wanted "to continue
the journey".

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